Cloisonné shuttles

After the ugliness of today and the tears that I’ve shed, and now the shooting of the eleven police officers in Dallas (how does that fix anything?? Two wrongs do not make a right!! Am I the only one whose parents beat that into my head?!), I have decided I need a break from it. I needed something fun, so I loaded up my two cloisonné shuttles to try them out.

Let me first say, I love them. They are absolutely gorgeous. And there is a bit of a learning curve.

First of all, though they are by far my smallest shuttles, they are also my heaviest. There is a heft to them that you don’t notice on picking them up, unloaded. Once loaded and dangling from your hands if you’re working with two shuttles, you definitely notice the pull of the extra weight. This is not a bad thing at all, nor is it a good thing. It’s just a thing, and one you aren’t prepared for because they’re so small. I actually like it for when I’m making a chain of double stitches, because dangling the second shuttle off of my pinky is generally how I do that, and my lighter weight shuttles don’t really do the job that well. With them, I have to wrap the working thread around my pinky at least twice and more usually three times, then let the shuttle dangle to keep the thread tautness where I want it. With the cloisonné shuttles, I can wrap the thread once and let it dangle and I’m good!

The other part of the learning curve is that these are my first open-ended shuttles. All of my other shuttles are closed at both ends, and when I’m tatting, I don’t get caught on the thread as I’m weaving the shuttle back and forth. With these, I do get caught. I’m not used to that wide open end yet. Again, not a bad thing, not a good thing, just a thing. It’s a different type of shuttle, so I have to simply get used to its idiosyncrasies.

It’s kind of like kids. No, really, hear me out! You have two children. They’re both yours, they both have the same parents, but they’re not two of the same person. They’re individuals. What works on one kid is not necessarily going to work for the other, and so you have to handle them differently to achieve the results you want, which is to raise two productive, happy members of society. Shuttles are the same way. There are so many variations in shuttles, but they all do the same thing, essentially. The Aerlits have a hook tip, the shuttle tips are completely closed, and they make use of a bobbin. The Moonlits have a hook tip as well, but the end tips are open and touching, using a pillar to carry the thread. Other shuttles have tips like the Moonlits, but lack the hook. They will either have a pick or nothing at all. Then there are these open-ended shuttles like the cloisonné. It’s just a matter of figuring out what works with whatever shuttle you’re using.

So there you are. Now I have another shop to watch on Etsy for more shuttles. Jeez. The trouble I get myself into.

Have a good night, all. Hugs and love to you and yours from me and mine.